Cell Phone Tracking Reveals Users' Habits 180
DinkyDogg writes "'New research that makes creative use of sensitive location-tracking data from 100,000 cellphones in Europe suggests that most people can be found in one of just a few locations at any time, and that they do not generally go far from home.' More interesting than their conclusion, however, is how they got their data. 'The researchers said they used the potentially controversial data only after any information that could identify individuals had been scrambled. Even so, they wrote, people's wanderings are so subject to routine that by using the patterns of movement that emerged from the research, "we can obtain the likelihood of finding a user in any location." The researchers were able to obtain the data from a European provider of cellphone service that was obligated to collect the information. By agreement with the company, the researchers did not disclose the country where the provider operates.' Any guesses which European country requires cell phone providers to record where their customers make calls, and then allows them to give that data away without disclosing that they have done so?"
Is that really so surprising? (Score:5, Insightful)
My typical day is: wake up, shower, go to work, be at work 8h (I don't go out for lunch), go back home, cook, eat, relax, sleep. That adds up to 2 places where I'll be, and anywhere on the highway to work. Add in grocery shopping in one of the two nearby supermarkets and you pretty much know where I'll be on any given day Monday to Friday.
On weekends it might be a bit more complex because I go to the recycling centre, eventually visit my parents or my wifes parents, go to a restaurant, the movies, but even then.... What is it going to add up to? A dozen places?
This only proves that we're routine-animals. That's all....
My Guess? ...Britain (Score:4, Insightful)
The other day i realised that my entire journey from home to work i am exposed to at least 15 cameras along the entire journey. We have cameras on streets, platforms
While I appreciate its "there to protect us" Im afraid i dont trust the people who's job its to monitor them.
So that's why i wouldnt be at all surprised if it was the UK tracking moves - after all they are tracking everything else.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Menwith_Hill)
Re:My Guess? ...Britain (Score:3, Insightful)
I pretty much agree with everything you say - but RAF Menwith Hill is a bad link; only security is provided by the MoD - the actual site and all the sooper-seekrit spy stuff is run by the US Air Force...
Mind you, my understanding of Echelon is that it's a great way to bypass annoying local laws; Canada spies on US citizens and passes the intel to the US, Australia spies on Kiwis for the NZ government, Menwith Hill spies on British citizens - all nice and clean and local intelligence agencies don't get their hands dirty spying on their own citizens.
Re:Pretty sure it must be the Netherlands (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course that doesn't mean there are no illegal / secretive taps, it's common knowledge that there are (for example, by using new wiretap techniques that are not mentioned in the law police are able to circumvent the oversight process), but at least the numbers you mentioned are legal, institutionally approved taps. Some may say the whole process is in effect rubber stamping every application, but it seems to me it's (at least a bit) more than that.
Re:Is that really so surprising? (Score:5, Insightful)
But when you are in your home ground you can quickly start habits and tracks that you are comfortable with.
A more interesting application of the cell phone tracking is actually that it can give planners a better understanding of the travel patterns for people. This in turn can be turned into effective public transportation, better road planning etc.
From a historical point of view it is understandable that humans do have very fixed patterns. If you know the terrain then you know where the threats may be and where to find food & other good things in life. This is why we feel awkward as soon as our favorite store remodels and currently all aisles are changed or placed in new directions.
Of course - if we were to live in an ever-changing world we would adapt to that too.
Re:My Guess? ...Britain (Score:3, Insightful)
I think that they are there more for us to think we are monitored all the time and then occasionally we may happen to end up on YouTube [youtube.com].
Re:Germany! (Score:3, Insightful)
Can you vote a telco out? :P (Score:4, Insightful)
Umm, I wasn't aware that you can "vote out" a telco. (Or we would have voted out the dimwits from the Deutsche Telekom a long time ago.) Much less that you can vote out some researcher which doesn't even live there.
There were some data retention and privacy laws that were definitely broken. Which I strongly suspect is why they put an explicit condition to not be named. And from there it's up to the police and courts to apply those laws. I don't think you can vote on _that_. And it's probably better so, because justice isn't and shouldn't be a popularity contest.
The voting in and out has to do with the fact that we got those laws in the first place. You know, instead of weasel arguments about how the 4th amendment doesn't apply (A) to the government (then to who the heck _does_ the US constitution apply?), or (B) if it wasn't literally your papers or house being searched, or (C) by conveniently defining that if it happened over some company's lines, it's in public and noone really needs a warrant to observe that, or (D) if it allows a company to earn a few more bucks, or a few other variations.
And _if_ any politician wanted to make this thing legal, or give them a free pass, _then_ we'll vote him out. But I really doubt that they will. At worst we'll see some impotent posturing, and claims that it's impossible to determine who and whether a law has actually been broken or the researcher in case has just invented the data. (Which I strongly suspect he'll claim, once the ball starts rolling.)
But seriously, I doubt that any major politician, at least in Germany, will want to be seen as officially on the side of letting any company sell your data to the highest bidder. Although the country did slide a bit to the right lately, it's by far not at the point where anyone wants to be seen as arguing that the corporations should have unchecked power over their customers. It would be a _very_ unpopular point of view, and their political opponents would use it to the max to their own advantage. Sometimes even members of their own coalition.
(Here elections usually don't get "won" by any party, but about some uneasy coalition of several parties, to total more than 51% between all of them. With the implication that if you make yourself extremely unpopular, you might not even need to wait for the next elections to be voted out: a coalition can reform the other way around over night, moving you from head of the winning coalition to the largest opposition party. It's not a usual occurrence, but it can happen.)
But anyway, we'll wait and see. So far it's hardly some orwellian government plot, it's just one company which broke the law. It happens in the USA too, without always meaning that it reflects some government stance. See, for example: Enron [wikipedia.org].
From here, it can go in a lot of possible directions, not just "it's the way the government wants it". If it goes the wrong way, we'll vote some politicians out. If not, not. It's really that simple.
Re:Germany! (Score:4, Insightful)
What makes you say that the data is centered on Germany? Have you found the actual place that matches the cell phone tower locations? could you tell the coordinates?
There's data, then there's data (Score:5, Insightful)
Contrary to what the paper suggests, the data has not been anonymized.
You're exactly right. Give me access to cell phone location data and I'll be able to identify the individuals. If they know people don't wander far from home, then they know where home is. And where work is. It'll take all of ten minutes to add a name to a pattern of behavior. The concern becomes a group that lacks collective conscience...like the Bush administration....starts using anonymous data to look for suspicious patterns of behavior. Justifying the surveillance by suggesting that they're not spying on individuals, merely looking for suspicious patterns. Sound familiar?
Then think about how that could be abused. I was watching a news story about a local anti-terror exercise that involved the feds and local law enforcement. The DHS spokesperson actually said that any criminal activity can be used to support terrorism so anti-terror exercises get muddled together with law enforcement. Every criminal is a potential terrorist. It's happening in the banking industry. The monitoring provisions were put in place to look for terrorist activity, but now banks are reporting any suspicious transactions down to $1,000. Anyone think Elliot Spitzer was a terrorist? The monitoring program that netted him was put in place to monitor for terrorists but once it became obvious Spitzer was not funneling money to Al Qaida, the investigation continued under the mantle of law enforcement. Okay, so law enforcement starts monitoring cell phone GPS data looking for suspicious patterns of behavior, at first looking for terrorists, but since any crime potentially supports terrorism, it starts getting more widespread and granular. Going to a particular street in a particular part of town...like a mosque...could flag you. Sending money to a family member overseas or just being in the vicinity when a crime takes place. Maybe law enforcement starts using cellular GPS data to locate potential witnesses. Want to explain to the boss why the cops showed up and wanted to know if you saw anything while visiting the "entertainment" district last night?
The anonymous element is an intellectual dodge. There's nothing anonymous about your pattern of behavior, it's as unique as a fingerprint. This is real 1984 kind of stuff.
I'm more afraid of widespread monitoring than terrorism. Once you start chipping away at the edges of privacy it's hard to get back. And, right now, we're paying billions of our tax dollars to create an agency that regularly pounds our right to privacy with a sledgehammer.
Re:I Disagree (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Well, there goes the myth of the EU saner than (Score:3, Insightful)
You started off great and then went straight downhill. American media is more concentrated now...but American media completely dictates to government. Politicians are milked for all they are worth -- and if they don't play along, the media sinks their popularity. Or worse.
The last thing American media wants is a third party. [Politicians could care less, they are basically opportunists.] Politics in America is like religion (two poles, apart). It is also like JFK/RFK/911 conspiracy "theories" -- "Do _you_ think it was a conspiracy?" "Ooh, the intrigue." They just keep the debate alive, never resolving it. Same with vegetarianism, we hear doctors saying we should eat more vegetables, less meat -- but rarely NO meat, and certainly not in the media.
Soft drinks: we have Coke, Pepsi and...what? When you have three+ parties (like Canada), you have unpredictable voting, and if you are not careful, logical policies will emerge and/or two parties might unify to oust the third. Today American politics is fanaticism (the voters) and rhetoric -- none of which, not one speck, has anything to do with what the media/cartel will have us doing in the four years ahead.
Save time, skip the politics talk. We are all being led by the nose ring wherever they want to lead us. There's no cake, no ice cream, happy birthday.
Re:The upshot of this... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Well, there goes the myth of the EU saner than (Score:2, Insightful)
This isn't about whether or not the company violated EU laws in giving it to another private entity. It's about the fact that data is being held for the government, and is being held PERIOD.
Re:New Physics (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Can you vote a telco out? :P (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The upshot of this... (Score:1, Insightful)
I think the most important point here is that Ryan Frederick probably didn't intend to kill a cop, yet did. This should be enough for most people to realize that these cops should not be sent in to situations where it's likely the suspects intend to kill a cop. In the vast majority of cases, though, it would suffice to just walk up to the door and knock.